ROUND AND ROUND

The night passed in a cacophony
Of pain and sorrow
Manic I ran screaming off into realms
Of madness and repetition as
Round and round I went
Not knowing what I was doing
Just ticking boxes in my mind
Like a zombie following old instincts
Of regularity and routine
My mind dying, slowly being
Eaten by a worm from a glass.

Waking the next morning I
Made for the door again, off
Walking again, walking off
This bout of madness as
Round and round I went
Again. Early morning
Sunday and the only people
About seemed wrecked or
Sad that they are again out of
Bed at this unholy time but me
Well with work in a few short
Hours I’ll head back home, eat
Some breakfast, smoke a joint
And get a couple of sneaky hours
In bed before the onslaught of
Yet more madness at that horror
Show of a place called work.

Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton, UK. His poems and stories are dotted all over
the internet as well as in journals, anthologies, zines and four individual chapbooks.
He is currently looking to sell his latest novel to the highest bidder. Get in touch
@BradfordMiddle5 on Twitter if interested.

BIG RAINS

I sit cross-legged in the rain
and I’m thinking things over.
Sitting until my legs go numb,
until I begin shivering, think-
ing.

Dumber than an animal, I sit.
Not smart enough to get out
of the rain. If grandma were
alive her head would be shake-
ing.

Big rains all around me and
my clothes cling to my body.
Love doesn’t come but hate
melts in the incessant bash-
ing

water. I tremble. Close my
eyes. It’s good enough for
now, I mumble internally.
I dream of life beyond love,
dream of home. Begin to s-
ing.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

Luna Moth  

Make your presence known, we are short of time,  
3 or 4 days at most and then you become what memories   
are made of and no longer yourself,  
and there is no coming back, this is not some stupid séance   
of rocking tables and intangible flashlight love from the beyond –  
gestation is an ugly word, I know,   
almost criminal in its embrace of the unknown,  
but I am tired of waiting around.  
This is not the same as standing in line at market.  
Get to it or forget the whole thing!  

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Fixator Press, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

forethought’s lapse

cursed with a promethean liver,

a pile of numb bones in glistening flesh,
and a head spared to hang over uneasy

atop a dormant stratovolcano of fervor, he
drank daily his deluge of fire in humble clay,

much resigned to view his endless sacrifice at
the beak of a hungry vulture in eagle’s pretense,

indiscriminate to meat, fat, and anything in between

Brian (@wrdsrch) writes and sings. Recent work is featured and/or forthcoming in Thimble, FERAL, Sledgehammer, and Versification, among others. He holds a BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University. https://brianalvarado.com/writing.

NAMES AND DATES

In the memorial garden
At Golden Pines
A low stone wall bears plaques
With names and dates, set in a,
Shall we say,
Chronological order:
Here a plaque with a name and dates,
And then one that has been left blank,
And then more with names and dates,
Interspersed with more empty spaces,
Which we have come to see
Are saved for those of us
Who walk these woods and
Examine the wall these brisk afternoons,
Autumn crunching underfoot,
Memories of friends lighted
By a cold November sun.

Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other
Ladders, published in 2017 by Beech River Books. He is a retired school administrator
with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where he lives four
months of the year.

october poem

feeling low
i drink and drive, 
chance death for 
something more—

i dream of misplaced smiles,
but it’s no use,
they’re all gone,
they’re long gone

i drive past cars,
darkened homes,
withering gardens,
and unfamiliar streets…

at home
the lonely
bird feeders
are empty

i fill them
just to hear
the seed fall
like march rain

Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. He is the author of 18 chapbooks and several collections of poetry, including “The Ants Crawl In Circles” (Whiskey City Press, 2022). He runs Between Shadows Press.   

45 years of Great Lakes Orthodontics

To illuminate & inform
the quality of life, we’ve 
worked very hard over 
the past several years
to implement a service-
oriented approach to 
the development of 
perimeter sites that can be 
joined to the cluster of
reference models. In 
short, this means that,
unless otherwise noted, 
you can reproduce an
interactive proximal end 
to the early filling vein 
that is much more 
convenient to exit. We’re 
looking forward to our 
continued partnership.

Mark Young’s latest book, Your order is now equipped for shipping, is due out from Sandy
Press in August. It will be available through Amazon.

Blood Stained Tents in the Wind

Another night under
my taped cardboard tent
praying in the wind

hiding from madmen
in the near city
searching the outskirts

their heavy boots
kicking and stomping
anyone already on their backs

my fists swollen
from the last maniac
now laying on the railroad tracks

shouldn’t have left him there
he didn’t know
I still have a backbone to fight

maybe they’ll find him
before the rumble
and whistle of the last train

if already dead
they’ll rob him
and light him on fire

laughing
and populating the land
with another ghost

resuming their hunt for me
not realizing sometime soon
we’ll outnumber them.

 

Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to stay up all night and write with lightning bolts until they fizzle down behind the dark horizon.  He was the editor of Dead Snakes, UFO Gigolo, and Calvary Cross.  He can be found on Twitter as papapoet.

Days My Poems Go Far Away

I pray for monsoonal wordfalls that succumb to ravishing sunlight. Similes pool in echoing
canyons, soak into rocks, become slate shadows cooling collared lizards. I see my words in
aviator shades these lizards wear, double rainbowed, ricocheting off apricot sun. I clang the tiny
lenses like cymbals till rocks reverberate. Canyon bats, slick tuxedoed vampires upside down,
fold wings over my words, press them to throbbing chests. Make them blood thirsty. Then set
them free to stripe themselves around and around a cat’s ringed tail, letters getting cozy dancing
circles. Dancing. Circles dancing. Circles. When they’re dizzy, they spin off to clouds of
cayenne dust. Birds-of-prey swoop and grab them inches from the ground, hang glide them miles above boulders, drop them when they realize: They. Never. Die. My darlings plummet and crash among sinisterly grinning scorpions, positive they’ll surrender hopeless and scared, but they escape, muster power as they huddle. Enjamb into nightfall. Adjectives spread quilted bodies over shivering nouns. Weary words count bighorn sheep but can’t drift to sleep without order. So I coax them into zombie stanzas, coo and cajole them to extend metaphors, link arms with caesuras. The Big Dipper pours vanilla chamomile as lines blur in somnambulist trance. It’s time to poet these words home, peer into their yellow marble mountain lion eyes, stroke their shaggy bison beards, kiss their ears with promises to never unmother again.

Dana Kinsey is an actor and teacher published in Drunk Monkeys, ONE ART, On the Seawall, Sledgehammer Lit, West Trestle Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and Prose Online. Dana’s play, WaterRise, was produced at the Gene Frankel Theatre.  Her chapbook, Mixtape Venus, is published by I. Giraffe Press. Visit wordsbyDK.com

parallels on wane

dithering can
wobble stationary
if facial quips remain focused
as they call more is necessary
so i crawl in blizzard slam shock
to make my point we are nothing
without believing real
is invalid here

i digested prayers
from dying dreams
between sly flutter we smiled tears
yes i know doctrines promise deliver
but i’m inclined to believe silent truth
offers twice removed faith message
given life panics
when being declines

ok that wasn’t noted
clearly even at all
but if you dissect behavior of tempted
you like they will see hopeful falling
is no less certain than parallels on wane
for gabble relieving or not collected exact
is what is sought after the fact
sinks heaven silent

Stephen House has won many awards as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council and Asialink. His chapbooks “real and unreal” and “The Ajoona Guest House” are published by ICOE Press. His next book is out soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely.